Production

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Introduction

You build and run a Phoenix app with Corex in production. Corex ships as plain HEEx plus ESM JavaScript; mix assets.deploy minifies and digests the same CSS and per-hook chunks you use in development.

Before you start

RequirementNotes
SECRET_KEY_BASEmix phx.gen.secret
Database URLProduction or local stand-in
ESM Esbuild--format=esm --splitting from Manual installation
Design (if used)corex.design.build runs before Tailwind/Esbuild in assets.deploy. Keep {:corex_design, ..., runtime: false} (no only: :dev) so the Mix task is available under MIX_ENV=prod. That flag does not rebuild CSS at request time.
MCPMount only in :dev / :test; never enable in :prod

How it works

  1. MIX_ENV=prod mix compile builds the app.
  2. mix assets.deploy should run mix corex.design.build (when you use Design), then Tailwind and Esbuild with --minify, then digest files under priv/static.
  3. With ESM splitting, you get an entry chunk plus one chunk per lazy hook under priv/static/assets/js/.

Steps

Generate a secret:

mix phx.gen.secret

Set environment variables (example .env, add to .gitignore):

export SECRET_KEY_BASE="__YOUR_SECRET__"
export DATABASE_URL="ecto://postgres:postgres@localhost/my_app_dev"

source .env
MIX_ENV=prod mix compile
MIX_ENV=prod mix assets.deploy
MIX_ENV=prod mix phx.server

Visit http://localhost:4000/.

For a release, run the same asset pipeline in your release build (Docker/mix release) so priv/static includes digested CSS and JS. Keep plug Corex.MCP out of the production endpoint.

--a11y plugs call Corex.Design.Accessibility (cookie → data-*); they do not generate CSS. Mix.Release omits runtime: false apps unless listed, so add corex_design: :load to the release applications list. See Accessibility.